What a great way to start my Wednesday!!!!!!! Gorgeous!!!!!! Rosie

Another shot of Feathered Silk still blooming. I think this is one of my top favorites in all my collection. You can see I self pollinated a flower and the seed pod is elongating behind these two blooms. Most of the seedlings will surely be duds to throw to my compost pile or give away as freebie thank you gifts, but I might get lucky and produce something interesting, who knows?

Interesting to note that some of the flowers come out very red-purple and very dark, intense at first, then fade and color change a bit softer and more blue with age. Usually it's the other way around with streps blooming more purple blue and turning slightly more red purple or even rich pink or coral with age. Such as DS Le Petage d'Alchemie and DS Beloved.

fantastic colors!

Hyn, I would LOVE to see pictures of your growing area! How do you manage such numbers of plants?? These are stunning. If I had a whole room for gesneriads I would be tickled pink! :D

Rosie is right that I have a number of photos in my idea books. I have an art studio that is about 12.5 feet wide by 25 feet long that has windows on 3 sides. So I have 5 steel shelving racks in there and another in another room for quarantine. This is a shot of one end with my personal stock plants. Streps on the left, AV's on the right, and corytoplectus seedlings on the top right before I sold most of them. A few orchids and other things here and there. I keep epscia in my 75 gallon aquarium.

And most of the rest of my shelves are taken up with propagation, 75 flats in total. I'm in the process of starting to take down the terrarium to pot up cuttings and empty it for my upcoming move. I hope to relocate my gesneraids to a cool basement as my art studio often gets very warm.

Ohhhhhh Hyn, I am soooooo envious! Not that I want to sell my stuff but because I just love to grow millions of plants!!!!!! Rosie

Don't be envious. It's a LOT of work. If you don't decide to try it for a living, it's more fun to limit what your time and space can allow and just enjoy your very favorites. After we move I have to decide if I really want to expand into a full blown greenhouse business and hire help, or cut back and go back to only growing what I enjoy for myself. My customers have been fantastic, but it really ties me down with caring for the plants, packing and shipping, answering emails, etc. My husband wants to travel more so we have to make some decisions.

Oh that is one heck of a decision to make Hyn. Good luck to you! Rosie

Of all of the DS series I have grown, by far, this one is the easiest and hardiest of his varieties in my opinion. May not be the flashiest, however it makes up for it by the size and quantity of it's blooms!

Nice to have your input, Davioletman. DS Little Plushy Artic Fox just opened for me and at the moment I am really enjoying how SMALL a plant is is for a DS and how very eager it is to bloom. Several bloom stalks up at once on a young plant. I'm pinching off all other buds though after these first few open because I want it to grow plenty strong before it blooms it's brains out. Relieved to see one of them I kept blooming true. So far it's a super easy grower and made a lot of babies from that leaf piece.

Is this DS Little Plushy Arctic Fox????? Beautiful! Love those colors!!!! It is going on my Strep Wish List, volume 2, page 642!!!!!! lol Rosie

Hahah, you almost made me spit out and choke on my coffee, Rosie! You made me laugh, reading that! I'm listing a few babies to my shop right now but I'll have more in the autumn I think. Lyndon Lyons also carries it (or did) but their's is almost twice the price of mine. They do however have a replacement policy if theirs does not bloom true and I do not.

Oh so sorry Hyn! Never want to waste good coffee! hahaha!!! Rosie

*snerk* It's worth having a good laugh. At least I didn't spit it out all over my laptop. ;)

Honestly,,,,I was wondering about that! <:} Whew!!!!

Hyn,,,wait,,,,I just re-read this thread. Do I understand you correctly when you said you keep your Episcias in a 75 gallon tank, (which looks beautifully staged I might add) and you are going to EMPTY the whole thing just too start cuttings????? And then replant the now very small mother plants to grow new babies and repeat the cycle???? Is that the only reason they are in this tank? It is only temporary to grow the Episcias (as though it is a nursery) and then you tear it down just for propagation????? Oh my but it looks so pretty! I hate to think of it all torn down! I know,,,,spoken like an amateur not a grower. Have read this thread several times and this is the first time I picked up on this! Rosie

Ehm, yes and no. Yes some of my episcia /were/ living in the 75 gallon terrarium and yes I tore it all down. It's done now. But not because I wanted cuttings. I could take cuttings from it regularly while it was still set up. I did it because I am moving and putting things into storage. I am transferring my collection from this house to a family member's basement while we do repairs and list this house for sale and while we are house hunting. I hope to be moving into a new home this autumn.

The terrarium was always intended to be temporary over winter housing because my art studio gets down into 40's in winter. So in the event we lost electricity due to a winter storm and my studio froze, it was my hope that the enclosed terrarium might be a temporary backup plan I could throw blankets over and keep from freezing. I knew from the beginning that the episcia would over grow it and need to be removed or restarted and replanted later. I also knew we'd planned to relocate this year so the whole thing is easier to move if it's cleaned out.

But do not fret. Once we are all moved and settled, this winter I will set it all back up again and replant it with fresh plants. I don't know yet what I'll plant into it. Probably a mix of gesneriads, some episcia, some sinningia, and many other things. A terrarium needs to be torn down and redone, or at least trimmed and cleaned up, regularly so with the kinds of plants I am using I look at it with an eye of always being temporary but always changing. Else I would get bored with it anyway. ;)

Another use the terrarium had was a high humidity location where I could try to cross pollinate episcia - which worked! I have collected a few berries and we'll see what I get from that seed later.

Wow,,,,what a plan. Good for you, sounds like you have it under control. But whew what a lot of work! Good luck to you Hyn, and post new pix after you are all set up. Let us see what you have done!!!!! Rosie

Selling and packing plants is a great deal more work! Ugh, so tired of it and glad to have a summer break to do anything else for a while. ;) I'll stay in touch and be very happy to share photos when I set it back up again.